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Profile: Ryan Tubridy: He learnt early to find time for a schmooze

As a child, Ryan Tubridy was used to fighting his corner and generally emerged victorious from the battle of the bunks. Each summer, at his parents’ holiday home in Baile na hAbhann, a scenic village seven miles from Spiddal, the Tubridy offspring would vie nightly for the most comfortable top bed. If Ryan found himself stranded on the lower deck, he would stick his feet through the metal grid and try to unseat his smug-faced sibling from the upper bunk.

Successfully ousting his opponents, he later said, was the only form of retaliation open to him as the underdog.

Last week any lingering sense of inferiority must have been dismissed with the announcement that RTE’s golden boy was to take over the prime morning radio slot from the veteran broadcaster Marian Finucane.

Ryan’s move to Radio 1 was one of RTE’s worst-kept secrets. The state-owned broadcaster has long signalled its